Castle Quarter, a crazy clock and tired feet

Prague Travel Blog

We tried to get an early start on this day since we knew we had a lot of site seeing to get done. Our first stop was Prague Castle, we took the tram from the hotel all the way to the castle quarter. When we got in we realized that we didn't beat the tour groups to the castle. There was a very long line to get into St. Vitus Cathedral.

We decided to go to Lobowicz Palace. This place was highly rated on Trip Advisor so we decided to go there instead of the Royal Apartments. The Lobowicz Palace is a very interesting place. The family was a noble family in Czechoslovakia prior to the Second World War. They were a noble family since before the renaissance and they can trace their roots through many noble families throughout Europe.

Flo and the view from Lobowicz Palace

They had their property confiscated by the Nazis and then again by the communists. So the family had to exile to the US.

The museum was especially interesting after visiting Vienna and the Treasury. His ancestors were members of the “order of the golden fleece”. The actual medallion for the head of the order was in Vienna. The collection was very varied. They had paintings, guns, armor, musical instruments, manuscripts and a great view of Prague. The highlights of the collection are a manuscript of Beethoven's fifth and sixth symphonies, a manuscript of Handel's Messiah with corrections by Mozart and fantastic landscape paintings of London. This museum has a great audio guide and gives a great history of one family in the Czech Republic.

We had a lunch at the Lobowicz Palace museum.

Muchas stain glass window

I had a meal with corn soup, goulash and cheese cake and a beer from the Lobowicz Brewery. We ate outside with a fantastic view of Prague.

After lunch, we toured St. Vitus Cathedral. This is a very pretty gothic church with many monuments. We used our Rick Steves guide book to explain some of the highlights of the Cathedral. I have to say that I like using podcast tours much better then reading guidebooks through a church.Some of the highlights included the tomb of St. John Nepomuk, and the stain glass window especially the Muchas window that was created in the 1930s. The national gallery in town had a Muchas and Salvador Dali exhibition unfortunately we didn't have enough time to go.

After St. Vitus Cathedral, we walked down the hill and took a tram just before the Charles Bridge.

Flo on the Charles Bridge

The bridge is quite interesting with many different statues. One of the more interesting statues was that of St. John Nepomuk. The statue itself is that of a man surrounded by five stars around his head. The legend is that if you touch the plaque with the saint and make a wish that wish will come true. However you only get one chance in a lifetime to make the wish. Flo and I both made the same wish.

After the Charles Bridge, we made our way to the old town square to take a look at the astronomical clock. The clock struck 3 and the skeleton did it's thing to ring the bell and the 12 apostles appeared.

After the clock, we were looking for the Jewish Town. We made a wrong turn and passed the Municipal House and ended up on Na Prikope where we found a big mall called Palladium.

Rubbing the plaque and making a wish

We went into the mall for a bathroom break. I actually found a public toilet prior to the mall where I had to pay 10 kc to go to the bathroom.

We decided that since the mall was open late, we would go to the Jewish Town. We ended following the signs to the Jerusalem Synagogue and we ended up going around in a big circle. We were getting frustrated with each other because our feet were hurting so much. We were finding that as the trip progressed our feet were hurting especially after about 3 or 4 hours of walking. The uneven cobblestone streets didn't help matters.

We reached the Jewish cemetery and we found out that we couldn't get a pass for just the cemetery. I thought 300 Kc was a little too steep since we would only be able to see one site. So we ended up wasting about an hour's worth of time, but more importantly we were running out of energy.

We spent a couple more hours at Palladium. First we were resting our feet, then we got Japanese food at there food court. Eventually Flo summoned the energy to do a little more shopping. I sat and enjoyed a large Americano at the coffee shop.

We made our way back to our hotel, to pack once again and to get some well needed rest for our final full day in Europe.